


Angels for the Snow Queen

by emei



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-13
Updated: 2011-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-15 16:48:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/162850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emei/pseuds/emei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some days, even the Crown Princess and her very own princess of the people need nothing more than a tumble in the snow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Angels for the Snow Queen

**Author's Note:**

> Snow day indulgence! With my thanks to the Finishathoners for encouraging me, and especially to [](http://frigg.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**frigg**](http://frigg.dreamwidth.org/) for the second pair of eyes. Enjoy!

The morning light is slanting across the wall when Morgana wakes up, peeking in through the gap between the curtains. It’s a pleasant surprise: she fell asleep to snow lashing against the window panes and the wind howling, happy to be snug in Gwen’s arms instead of stuck in an airport. Now she’s alone in the bed, and vaguely remembers Gwen getting up in the middle of the night, shushing her back to sleep. Morgana rolls out of bed, sticks her feet in her slippers and pads out to find her.

Gwen is in their private living room, curled up in the corner of the couch with a blanket pulled up to her chin and fast asleep. Her laptop is open on the table in front of her, still playing a news stream. The sound is turned down low, but the images from last night of ecstatic crowds in the streets of Cairo are instantly recognizable anyway.

It used to be Morgana who always woke up in the middle of the night and wandered around her rooms like a restless spirit. To counter her insomnia, she built up a large collection of herbal teas and philosophical movies with long shots of beautiful scenery, but they’ve been mostly collecting dust since Gwen moved into her bed. At least, they did until a couple of months ago, when Gwen started having use of them instead. That was when she suddenly found herself the focus point of a veritable political dogfight. Morgana had expected the publicity and media scrutiny around their wedding, but she hadn’t thought it would get quite so political or so vicious.

Morgana wanted to protect her from all of it but she knew she couldn’t, and Gwen wouldn’t have let her anyway. Still, she hated knowing that Gwen was awake in the night worrying. Finally, she’d hatched a plan to hire a hacker to put filters on Gwen’s laptop that would block all the bad press and vicious political trolls (since Gwen would not let Morgana’s press secretary handle it all). Only then did Gwen sit her down to show her what she was actually reading most of those sleepless three am moments.

There were countless letters, and Gwen had saved them all. Some asked for help, some were angry, some were chatty like they were trying to be friends with her, but most simply poured their hearts out.

“It’s like I’m a symbol of success, of possibilities, of dreams come true, I don’t know - a Cinderella like us!”

“And you’re surprised? The Cinderella story has been all over the place - the real Cinderella, the controversial Cinderella, the modern, the lesbian, the queer, the…”

“I know, I know… but that’s just selling papers, and this is - it’s making difference for people, being an inspiration... And honestly, all I did was _get married_. In a white dress! In church! That’s hardly being a paragon of revolution.”

“A paragon of loveliness, you were,” Morgana replied, and then that conversation got derailed all the way into their bedroom and tangled in the sheets of the bed.

Morgana smiles. They both sleep better now than they did right after the election (when Gwen silently raged over racists in parliament and Morgana wanted to abandon the country and its treacherous people and move to some paradise island; Gwen refused). But Morgana is sure that Gwen still works on the same problem, turns it over and over late at night and upside down and inside out early in the morning: how to be a rallying point for a struggle instead of a grassroots activist.

But apparently that wasn’t what kept her awake through the snow storm last night. Morgana takes one last look at the revolutionary joy and then switches off the news stream and closes the laptop. Gwen stirs.

“Good morning, sleepyhead. The storm blew over already, come see!”

And she drags Gwen over the the window almost before she’s properly awake, to watch the bright February sun over the snow. Saturday strollers are plodding in a single line, all slipping and sliding across the frozen lake down below the estate; kids in overalls are pulling sledges and sports freaks are running on cross-country skis.

Morgana wants to go out to look at the snow right now, but Gwen insists on breakfast and then on taking the time to dress very sensibly indeed. Morgana pulls on her coat and knee-high leather boots over jeans, and waits very patiently (well, at least she doesn’t tap her feet) while Gwen carefully tucks her long-johns into her woolen socks, and her pull over trousers over her boots, and tightens the snow lock on her jacket, and… “Come on!” says Morgana and pulls her out the door.

They escape around the back, out of view from the people by the lake and the workers shoveling snow off the roof on the other side of the building. Morgana knows a spot that’s mostly secluded from the security cameras but where the sun still reaches, and she tries to run towards it, dragging Gwen with her.

The snow is knee-deep, light and dry, rising in glittering clouds around them. Gwen stops suddenly, says, “Oh, I know!” and throws herself flat on her back in the snow.

“What?”

“Snow angels!” says Gwen, smiling, and starts moving both arms and legs, almost like she was trying to swim through the snow. She twists her hands down a little over her head, and suddenly the angel has curling wingtips.

“Some help?” she says and stretches a hand up towards Morgana who takes it, but doesn’t really provide any resistance. So instead of pulling Gwen up, Morgana tumbles down on top of her and they roll with the momentum until Morgana ends up with one arm trapped under Gwen, legs tangled together, and snow down her neck and up her coat all the way to her waist. Gwen is smiling down at her, snow all over her face too, stuck to her eyebrows and dusting the curls that have escaped her hat.

“You ruined my snow angel,” she says.

“I think I made you the snow angel instead,” Morgana replies, and Gwen explodes with giggles.

“Watch out, little girl, you’d better be careful about mocking me,” says Morgana, “for I am the Snow Queen. And all these Northern lands are mine to offer to the maid I fancy. I shall give her snowflakes sparkling in the sun, and shimmering frozen jewels, and all that is shiny, but if she refuses me…” and Morgana pushes with both her feet to roll them around again, landing on top of Gwen, “I shall trap her in my sparkly ice castle forever and ever and kiss her again and again until she surrenders!”

“Kaj only stayed with the Snow Queen because he had a splinter of ice in his heart,” Gwen says in between kisses. “You wouldn’t want me ice-hearted.”

“That’s true. Also, if I kept kissing you that much, I’m afraid we’d eventually melt the whole castle,” Morgana replies, mock serious.

“Lucky that you’ve already got a castle that won’t melt, then,” says Gwen and nibbles on Morgana’s lower lip.

And then she takes advantage of Morgana’s distraction to flip them over again, get to her feet and take off down the hill.

“Though you’ve still got to catch me,” she calls over her shoulder as Morgana tumbles after her like a snow cloud, with her impractical coat flapping around her.

Gwen doesn’t try very hard to run away, really.


End file.
